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WSM (AM)

WSM (650 kHz) is a commercial AM radio station, located in Nashville, Tennessee. It broadcasts a country music format (with classic country and Americana leanings, the latter of which is branded as "Route 650") and is known as the home of the Grand Ole Opry, the world's longest running radio program.[4] The station is owned Ryman Hospitality Properties, Inc.[5] WSM currently operates out of the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, and visitors to the hotel may look into the studio 24 hours a day, provided the curtains are open, which they usually are.

650 AM WSM

October 5, 1925 (1925-10-05)[1]

  • 1060 kHz (1925–1927)
  • 880 kHz (1927)
  • 890 kHz (1927–1928)[2]

"We Shield Millions" (slogan of former owner, National Life & Accident Insurance Company)

FCC

74066

A

50,000 watts unlimited

Nicknamed "The Air Castle of the South", the station broadcasts with 50,000 watts around the clock from a facility in Brentwood, Tennessee. It has one of the largest daytime coverage areas in the country, providing at least grade B coverage as far southeast as Chattanooga, as far northwest as Evansville, Indiana, as far west as Jackson, Tennessee and as far south as Huntsville, Alabama. At night, WSM's clear channel signal reaches much of North America and nearby countries.


WSM reaches a worldwide audience via its Internet simulcast. It is the National Primary Entry Point (PEP) for the Emergency Alert System (EAS) in Middle Tennessee and the southwestern portion of Indiana.

Programming[edit]

WSM is one of two clear-channel stations in North America, along with CFZM in Toronto, that still primarily broadcast secular music. (CKDO, in Ontario, is authorized as a clear channel but operates at a fifth of the broadcast power of WSM and CFZM, and operates directionally such that it is inaudible in the United States.)


Bill Cody has been the host of the morning show, Coffee, Country and Cody since 1998 and has been in radio since 1975.[6] Since its establishment on January 1, 2020, the country music oriented TV network Circle simulcast Coffee, Country, and Cody, following a period of several years where the Heartland network.[7] Cody's Pure American Country syndicated show is flagshipped at WSM. Larry Gatlin, lead singer of the Gatlin Brothers, hosts an hourlong gospel program on the weekends as of 2016. Tracy Lawrence's syndicated program Honky Tonkin' has been flagshipped at WSM since 2015.[8] Dailey & Vincent host a monthly radio show on the station. Chris Scruggs, grandson of Earl Scruggs, hosts a weekly show Friends and Neighbors with his house band, the Stone Fox Five, after most Friday Night Opry episodes. Mandy Barnett hosts a Nashville Songbook series for one hour each Monday evening. Charlie Worsham hosts the Air Castle Community Hour, mainly featuring artists in the Nashville music scene. Jason Coleman hosts a Sunday night piano music show in honor of his grandfather, longtime Nashville keyboardist Floyd Cramer.[9]


The Grand Ole Opry fills several nights of the station's evening schedule. Following the Opry on most Saturday nights is the Midnite Jamboree, an aftershow that was originally founded by Ernest Tubb in 1947 and continues to be sponsored by Tubb's eponymous record shop.[10] Following the Jamboree is the regionally syndicated Sutton Ole Time Music Hour.[11]


Syndicated programming on WSM as of 2021 includes reruns of Bob Kingsley-era American Country Countdown, Into the Blue, The Crook & Chase Countdown.


In 2017, WSM launched Route 650, a full-time Americana music streaming station available via its website, mobile app and services like TuneIn.[12]


In 2018, WSM launched Opry Nashville Radio, a full-time streaming station billed as being "based on the Grand Ole Opry and Nashville lifestyle" and focusing mainly on contemporary country music. During December, this channel flips to all Christmas music.


As recently as 2020, the station was live and locally originated during the overnight hours, but the overnight host position was eliminated in February 2020.[13]

Teddy Bart, a Nashville broadcaster of long tenure, began as a singer on shows like Waking Crew and parlayed his skills into hosting that show, an afternoon drive-time program with Larry Munson in the early 1960s and Nashville's first-ever call-in talk show, which ran from 1969 to 1981. He also hosted WSM-TV's Noon Show in the 1970s and anchored 's newscast briefly in the early 1980s before launching the group-discussion radio talk show Roundtable on WLAC in 1985, a show that ran for 20 years on several different stations.

WKRN-TV

moved to Nashville in 1974 to begin working for WSM, first as a substitute announcer for WSM-FM and then as a full-time disc jockey on WSM's AM and FM stations. Throughout his career, Bilbrey worked every single time slot at WSM and became an iconic voice in the modern history of the station and was truly a fan favorite. In 1982, Bilbrey began announcing on The Grand Ole Opry. When The Nashville Network (TNN) began televising a 30-minute portion of the show in 1985, the young announcer became the first host of Grand Ole Opry Live. Bilbrey hosted Opry Live, along with the Opry warm-up show, Backstage Live, until TNN stopped airing the show in 2000. He also hosted the Opry warm-up show on WSM. His 35-year career at the station ended in 2009.

Keith Bilbrey

served as the overnight host of WSM from the late 1950s until the early 1970s. Because of his time slot, listeners all over the U.S. could hear Emery spin country music records. This and The Grand Ole Opry solidified WSM's central role in the history of country music. In the 1980s, Emery gained further national fame as the host of Nashville Now! on The Nashville Network; before then, he hosted syndicated radio and television country music interview shows, and a long-running, highly rated morning show on WSMV-TV.

Ralph Emery

joined the WSM staff in late 1963 or early 1964 as secretary to operations manager Tom Griscom Tom Griscom. She left in 1965 to work for WSM-TV.

Sondra Locke

was a sportscaster for the Nashville Vols, Vanderbilt Commodores men's basketball and Vanderbilt Commodores football in the 1950s and 1960s, as well as working for WSM-TV. He was later renowned for his long tenure as the legendary voice of Georgia Bulldogs football.

Larry Munson

Former sister stations[edit]

In 1939, WSM began operating an experimental high-frequency, high-fidelity AM "Apex" station, W4XA, on 26.15 MHz.[30] This was replaced in 1941 by a commercial FM station, initially with the call sign W47NV and operating on 44.7 MHz. This was reported to be first commercial FM to be fully licensed; although a few FM stations had begun broadcasting earlier, they were operating under experimental or "Special Temporary Authorizations" and had not yet been granted operating licenses.[31][32] In 1943 the call sign was changed to WSM-FM, however the station was shut down in 1951, although its antenna is still mounted atop the Blaw Knox tower at Brentwood.


Seventeen years later the current incarnation of WSM-FM was established after a National Life subsidiary purchased WLWM and renamed it WSM-FM in 1968. This WSM-FM (95.5 MHz) was WSM's sister until 2008, when Cumulus Media, the full owner of WSM-FM since 2003, ended its joint sales agreement with the AM station. Despite having the same base call sign, the two stations are no longer related; incidentally, both the current WSM-FM on 95.5 MHz and the current occupant of the 103.3 frequency vacated by the original WSM-FM, WKDF, are now sister stations, with each separately broadcasting a country music format.


Television channel 4 (originally WSM-TV, and now WSMV-TV), was started by WSM, Inc. in 1950 and sold to George N. Gillett Jr. in 1981.

List of Nashville media

Grand Ole Opry

Circle

List of radio stations in Tennessee

(1970). The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-20493-9.

Hemphill, Paul

Official website

in the FCC AM station database

WSM

in Nielsen Audio's AM station database

WSM